Evergreen mayor wins re-election, racial makeup of council stays the same

View full sizeEvergreen Mayor Pete Wolff (right) chats with Conecuh County Sheriff Edward Booker as he waits for results in the municipal election on Tuesday, June 18, 2013. Wolff and most of the incumbents won re-election in a contest that was delayed for almost a year because of a federal voting-rights lawsuit. (Brendan Kirby/bkirby@al.com)

EVERGREEN, Alabama – Amid low turnout in an election that was delayed for almost a year because of a voting-rights lawsuit, Mayor Pete Wolff this evening won outright over two challengers, and incumbent City Council members mostly won, as well.

Councilman John Skinner, a white incumbent, won re-election in a district radically redrawn to create a large black majority.

Skinner, who got 51.6 percent of the vote in a field that included two white candidates and two black candidates, said the results refute the caricature of Evergreen painted by naysayers during the federal litigation over the racial makeup of the voting districts.

The election was supposed to have taken place in August with other municipalities across the state, but a federal court in Mobile postponed it after black voters alleged that the City Council failed to account for demographic changes in drawing boundaries for the five council districts after the 2010 census.

U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade adopted new boundaries that largely follow a proposal submitted by the plaintiffs. The new map includes three overwhelmingly black districts in the city, which now is about 62 percent black. The new map shifted a large number of voters from District 5 to Skinner’s District 1, creating a precinct that now is 64.2 percent black.

The changes to the council districts did not directly impact the mayor’s race, where the balloting is citywide.

Wolff, who is white, took 52.9 percent of the vote in defeating a pair of black challengers.

“Most everybody loves me,” he quipped. “I have an open-door policy, something most mayors don’t have. I have a yellow Hummer. People know who I am.”

Looking at the precinct returns, third-place finisher Jimmy Taylor said he detected a pattern of race-based voting that he believes is unhealthy. Contrary to reputation, he said, that has not always been the case.

“That’s always been the perception. But in the last election, there was a lot of crossover voting on both sides,” said Taylor, an assistant pastor. “Polarized voting is not a good thing.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit had hoped the court-ordered redistricting would change the racial makeup of the council. Instead, it appears the biggest change will be an incumbent getting turned out of office in favor of a challenger of the same race.

District 5 incumbent Maxine Harris defeated challenger Katrenia Cunningham 153-118. Both are black. District 3 Councilman Luther Upton is headed for a runoff with Joye Fordham. Both also are white.

The District 4 incumbent, Vivian Fountain, was unopposed.

“The race aspect of it didn’t seem to enter into it much,” said James Leon Windham, who started a website earlier this year devoted to Conecuh County politics.

Because of the lawsuit, the election drew increased scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Justice sent three observers to each of the five polling places.

“For all the attention we got,” turnout appeared to plummet from 2008, said the city’s lawyer, James Anderson.

But Anderson said the monitors helped the election run smoothly. “I think that helped having the Justice folks here,” he said.

Skinner said delaying the election so long and move so many voters to other districts caused confusion.

“I’ve seen a lot of people walking in to vote and walking back out,” he said. “It’s been trying for the whole city. I believe that’s why voter turnout is so low.”

Bert Estes, appointed special master by the court to run the election, said there were some minor issues getting equipment to work but noting severe.

“It’s been going fine today; a few minor problems, but nothing serious,” he said in the afternoon.

There were a few complaints. Taylor said he had seen some “aggressive campaigning” near the polls, and poll worker Mary Sirmon said the polling inspector at the Health Department office, the District 1 polling place, kicked her out because she had a cell phone capable of taking pictures.

Sirmon said she had been poll inspector for 40 years but that plaintiffs in the lawsuit insisted that the polling station have a black inspector. She said she later left her phone her car and returned to work but missed a call from a repairman she was trying to reach to get her dryer fixed.